Kentucky State Police capture kidnapping suspect from Alabama; man is accused of following woman home from grocery store and attacking her

Published 9:51 pm Tuesday, July 5, 2022

The man police say kidnapped an Alabama woman and left her tied up in his closet before police rescued her has been captured in Kentucky.

The Calhoun County Sheriff’s Office announced the capture of suspect Tony Lamar White, 47, in Richmond, Kentucky, by Kentucky State Police.

Calhoun County Sheriff Matthew Wade said Tuesday that it’s a miracle officers were able to quickly locate Betty Cobb alive on Monday. Her alleged assailant Tony Lamar White, 47, remains on the run.

“This is stuff that horror movies are made from,” Wade said. “This guy is definitely somebody who is dangerous and we have to get him.”

Cobb disappeared on July 4.

“As she went shopping a person was prowling the parking lot and he picked her out as a person he wanted to victimize,” Wade said. “And he followed her from that store to another store and to another store and then he followed her to her home.

“And when he got there, she was unloading her groceries, he attacked her, forcing her into the trunk of her vehicle and forcing her to his home.”

Investigators quickly located an image of White’s vehicle, which led to his address.

Cobb was found inside a closet in White’s home, bound and duct-taped.

“She thought she was going to die,” Wade said.

Wade said investigators believe White may wind up being a suspect in a series of rapes of elderly women dating back to the July 2012. Wade said investigators have DNA from two rapes, one in July 2012 and another in July 2013, but had never been able to match the DNA with any suspect.